About every 150 years or so a massive solar flare hits the Earth. If a massive solar flare hit the Earth it would fry every computer in the world. With time computers can be replace and society rebuilt, tho it'd be very costly. But how much data would be permanently lost? How many programs and how much source code would be lost forever?
Some propitiatory programs would have to be rebuilt without source code. In such an event where the original code is permanently lost, wouldn't that make any copyright claims invalid as there's no way to prove a copyright claim? Then if there's no copyright on old programs, anyone could recreate an old program and claim it themselves. Could Microsoft's flagship Windows OS have it's copyright stolen by somebody else in such an event? Oh BTW, we're overdue for a massive solar storm.
Lucas Moore
You can bet Microsoft has thought of this and has some archives deep underground.
Noah Richardson
>overdue for a massive solar storm Gambler's fallacy.
Joseph King
it would only really fuck up power lines, right?
Cameron Thomas
What is your basis for thinking it will destroy all computers? The solar flares happen all the time, you can even view its effect if you go where the northern lights are visible.
Sebastian Johnson
Not OP, but in the 1850s (or so) there was a solar flare so powerful that power lines (and telecom wires) were melting. It was inducing a electric current too large for telecommunication lines to handle and they heated up and melted.
Brandon Diaz
>2000 +17 >still living on a planet without radio transmission shielding
Jacob Nguyen
But could it fry computers that aren't plugged in? I'm legitimately curious
James Kelly
Yes, they'd have to be in a Faraday cage to be safe. It'd also fry any external drives you have.
